Congolese General sanctioned by U.S. and EU for human rights abuses is trading in illegal logging permits over DRC’s climate-critical forests, Global Witness reveals

A notorious Congolese army officer illegally traded timber
licences in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the run-up to disputed presidential
elections at the end of last year, Global Witness reveals today.

General Gabriel Amisi Kumba (known as “Tango Four”), sanctioned
by the EU and US for human rights abuses, is a powerful figure in DRC and a
close ally of former President Joseph Kabila, raising concerns that he used his
influence to sidestep the law in his acquisition and subsequent sale of logging
permits.

Amisi’s family obtained five logging concessions in June
2018, in contravention of DRC’s longstanding moratorium on the allocation of
industrial logging concessions, which was intended to protect the country’s
biodiverse and environmentally-critical rainforests.

The DRC’s Minister of Environment had confiscated these
licences from other logging companies without warning, before transferring them
to Amisi’s family-held company, Maniema Union 2.

The cancellation of the licences and their allocation to
Maniema Union 2 occurred within four days. Within weeks, the Amisi family sold the
company and its licences on to Lei Hua Zhang, a Chinese timber magnate who is
an owner of a sizeable but mysterious logging company operating in DRC.

Peter Jones, Campaign
Leader, Global Witness said, “General Amisi, a powerful Kabila regime insider, appears to
have managed to acquire and sell on logging licences at record speed, even
though obtaining new licences was illegal at the time.

“This raises fears that Congolese elites close to power have
been able to flout environmental regulations to make money, potentially lining
the pockets of politically-connected individuals at the expense of the
Congolese treasury and the country’s forests. This is especially worrisome as
DRC’s controversial elections appear to have resulted in a coalition
arrangement that allows Kabila to remain highly influential in DRC politics
despite not having stood for president,” added Jones.

This is not Amisi’s first foray into DRC’s lucrative trade
in natural resources. The General has long been accused – by the
UN, among others – of involvement in illegal mining and arms
trading.

In addition, Amisi has a track record of involvement in
human rights abuses. He was sanctioned in 2016 by the
EU and the US
for his alleged role overseeing the deadly suppression of pro-democracy
demonstrations in Kinshasa as Congolese citizens protested against delays to
presidential elections that were originally supposed to be held in 2016. In the
wake of these events and international sanctions, Amisi was promoted
by Kabila.

Global Witness wrote to General Amisi and contacted his
lawyer by telephone, but did not receive a substantive response.

Kabila’s
reign was characterised by widespread mismanagement and corruption, especially
in DRC’s lucrative timber and mining sectors. Amisi’s quick-fire acquisition
and sale of logging permits is another example of a failure to uphold the law
in the timber sector and the opacity around the trade in DRC’s forests.

Evidence of a deeply opaque logging sector

Lei Hua Zhang acquired Amisi’s permits by buying Maniema
Union 2, which was held at the time by Amisi’s wife and children. Company
records show that the General managed several of the children’s holdings as
they were too young to do so themselves. Documents seen by Global Witness show
that Amisi’s wife continued to manage Maniema Union 2’s logging concessions
several months after she relinquished her shares in the company.

Mr Zhang is the chairman of Wan Peng International, a major
Chinese timber, shipping and cement conglomerate active across Africa and Asia.
Wan Peng appears to have extensive logging and timber trading operations in
DRC, however almost no trace of the company exists on official records for DRC’s
timber sector or export records seen by Global Witness. The company claims that
in 2015 it purchased 1.09 million hectares of virgin forest in DRC, but the
concessions were not visible on the Environment Ministry’s online map of
concessions holders at the time Global Witness went to press.

Its recent activities in the region show that Mr Zhang's company,
Wan Peng, is also not shy of going into business with politically-connected
figures. In 2017, Wan Peng purchased an 80 percent share of Christelle SARL, a
timber company belonging to Kelly Christelle Sassou Nguesso, the daughter of
Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of neighbouring Republic of Congo.

“The patchy information around Wan Peng’s DRC logging operations
is reflective of an opaque sector more broadly,” said Jones. “It’s vital that the
country’s timber sector is run transparently so that logging activities in one
of the world’s most climate-critical forests do not carry on without any
effective oversight, as the results would be devastating.”

In response to questions from Global Witness about Wan
Peng’s business in DRC, including links to Amisi, a spokesman said that our
enquiries pertained to trade secrets and that they were not at liberty to
disclose any information.

What the DRC Environment Ministry has said, and what it must do now

Despite a legal obligation to do so, the DRC Environment Ministry
has yet to publish any information on the licence holders of the concessions
linked to Maniema Union 2. It has also failed to publish copies of any Maniema
Union 2 logging contracts online. This opacity around logging in DRC creates a
risk that illegally harvested timber can be sold on the global market, as
buyers will be unable to independently verify who owns the concessions from
which their purchases are sourced, a key requirement for effective due
diligence when buying timber.

The new DRC government should immediately revoke all
concessions allocated in violation of its moratorium and publish all details of
concession owners and contracts. The international community, which provides some
funding for the DRC Environment Ministry, should ensure that transparency
initiatives are genuinely enacted by the institutions they are funding and
demand all illegal logging concessions are cancelled and returned to the State.
International timber traders purchasing timber originating from DRC must
conduct in-depth due diligence to ensure that they are not purchasing timber sourced
from illegally allocated concessions or linked to sanctioned individuals.

/ ENDS

Contacts

General/out of hours media enquiries

Jean-Luc Blakey, Senior Campaigner

Martha Marcuson, Communications Advisor

Notes to editor:

Joseph Kabila was President of DRC for
18 years. He came to power after his father was assassinated in 2001
and went on to win two disputed elections in 2006 and 2011. DRC’s constitution
limits presidents to two five-year terms, meaning Kabila was obliged to step
down in 2016. However he repeatedly
delayed elections, raising fears that he planned to stay in power in
violation of the constitution. Eventually, in December 2018, presidential
elections took place and Felix Tshisekedi was declared the victor. Tshisekedi
replaced Kabila in DRC’s first peaceful transition of power, however the
official election result was rejected
by the Catholic Church, which had deployed a team of 40,000 election
observers to monitor voting. A noted
academic observer described the result as “the first election rigged
by the government in favour of an opposition candidate”. Tshisekedi does not
have a majority in parliament and as a result is forming a coalition government
with Kabila’s FCC party, whereby Kabila and his allies appear likely to retain
significant influence over key ministries and institutions.

Global Witness has campaigned for the protection
of climate critical forests in DRC for over 10 years. We have also advocated
for the proper enforcement of the European Union Timber Regulations with
regards to Congolese timber. Our report Total
Systems Failure revealed systemic issues in the management of DRC’s
logging sector, showing how the biggest single owner of logging concessions was
operating illegally on 90 percent of its sites. Our recent briefing Buyers
Beware shows how EU companies could be importing millions of Euros
worth of illegal Congolese timber. Another recent
briefing shows that due to no regulatory control over illegal timber
imports, China is exposed to systematic risk of illegal timber imports.

Major General Gabriel Amisi Kumba (Tango Four)
occupies the
second most powerful post in DRC’s military. He has been accused by
the UN Group of Experts for DRC of arming rebel groups
and poachers,
and of being involved in illegally
mining gold. He was sanctioned by the US
and EU
in 2016 for his role in the violent suppression of
pro-democracy demonstrations in Kinshasa.

DRC’s Environment Ministry produces, in
conjunction with the World Resources Institute (WRI), an online map
of logging concessions and owners, but the map seems to contain errors and omissions.
A similar map, produced in September 2018 by
the Agedufor project, a multimillion-Euro forest management scheme funded by
the Agence Française de Développement, also lacks vital information on the
identities of licence holders for several concessions, including one that seems
to be linked to Maniema Union 2. In many cases, rather than provide the name of
a licence-holder, the map simply states “contract signed”. It is not clear how
Agedufor was able to ascertain that a contract had been signed without knowing
the identity of the concession holder. If Agedufor does have the name of the
licence holder, it is unclear why it cannot disclose this information. The five
concessions awarded to Maniema Union 2 in June 2018 appear on the map under the
names of their previous owners, despite the fact that the map was labelled as
having been produced in September 2018, three months after the allocation to Maniema
Union 2.